Hungry for recent discoveries about prehistoric dining? A new study indicates the former owner of a tooth found in a Spanish site had been a carnivore. A cutting-edge zinc isotope analysis technique of remnant tooth enamel produced this result. Second Course: Frankfurt’s Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum serves up DNA from Sediments Offers Insights into the Use of Plants by Humans in the Paleolithic Age. Here another “exciting new tool for studying human behavior in prehistoric times”—analyzing plant DNA from sediments—showed their likely uses for food, flavoring, medicine, sewing, and even mosquito repellent. These articles naturally lead us to ask Did Ancient Humans Eat a Paleo Diet? This third course combines the toothy aspect of our first two offerings. Here “starch granules from food, which can remain trapped in hardened dental plaque” have helped flesh out our view of our balanced Paleo-eating Paleolithic ancestors. Fruit for dessert, as genetic studies have found Banana Domestication More Complex Than Previously Thought. Seems the modern banana has a varied and still somewhat mysterious history. (WM)
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